Tal Sankri (Indian Sesame Brittle)

Sal Mubarak and Happy New Year to all of the Desi folks out there! Wishing you all a very happy and joyous new year and may the new year bring you loads of happiness :).

For this special day, I will be sharing my amazing Tal Sankri recipe.  Yeah yeah, this isn’t usually made for Diwali/New Year, however, it tastes amazing and it’s a sweet! Typically, some people prefer this sweet to be hard and brittle like, however, my family and I prefer it softer.  This recipe is not difficult at all, however, you just have to be gentle with it and make sure you have the ratio right.  If the sankri ends up breaking apart, do not fear, because it’ll still taste amazing and your family will eat it. Trust me, they will-my own family did! What makes these soft?  Milk! This whole process took me less than 20 minutes, which is great!

The key thing to making tal sankri is to not leave the stove while you’re cooking the jaggery/ghor.  Ghor has a tendency to burn and if you don’t pay attention or leave it unattended, it’ll burn to your pan, which is no bueno.  Also, give it some time to let it cool completely, otherwise, it’ll completely fall apart on you.

I used brown sesame seeds, however, feel free to use white sesame seeds.  Brown sesame seeds have more nutrients to it, however, they’re a tad bit more expensive but it’ll work perfectly fine with white sesame seeds.  I would highly suggest roasting the seeds you use, since it’ll bring out the nuttiness even more.  After all, the star of this sweet is sesame seeds!

Want to add peanuts to this? Reduce the sesame seeds to 1 cup and replace the 1/2 with the peanuts.  Some recipes call for adding cardamom powder, however, I feel like it would have just taken away from the sesame taste so I omitted it.  If you wish to add it, I would suggest 1/4 tsp since it can be pretty strong.

Oh, did I mention, this is less than 4 ingredients?  Even better!

Ingredients:

• 1.5 C sesame seeds, roasted
• 3/4C jaggery (ghur/ghor), shredded or broken into small pieces *
• 2 tsp milk
• 1 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
• vegetable spray (to coat a pan)

*Can be found at any Indo-pak grocery store

Directions:

1. In a non-stick pan, over medium heat, heat the ghee.
2. Once the ghee is hot, add the jaggery cook until the jaggery melts and bubbles, stirring continuously.  Allow the jaggery to bubble for another minute.
3. Carefully add the milk (it will bubble up a bit) and mix well.
4. Add the sesame seeds to the mixture, stir a bit, and turn off the heat.
5. Mix the jaggery and sesame seeds together until it is well combined.
6. Pour into a greased tray and even and flatten it out, to your liking and thickness.
7. Very carefully cut desired shapes (making sure to cut all the way through).
8. Allow it to cool completely before you stuff your face in it!